Turtle Terror (6 page)

Seconds later Danny had caught up with him, his flippers working brilliantly, driving him through the water. He was very competitive and couldn't bear to be left behind. “This is the best S.W.I.T.C.H. we've
ever
had!” he said. “I can't believe Petty didn't want us to do this. It's brilliant!”

“You know . . . we're actually dinosaurs,” Josh said.

“We what?” Danny flipped round again and stared at his brother in fascination.

“Yup—we date right back to the Cretaceous period,” Josh said proudly.

“For once, freaky little nature nerd—that's quite cool!” Danny admitted. “Best S.W.I.T.C.H. ever,” he murmured, again.

“We'd better not get too far out,” Josh warned. “We don't know when it'll wear off. We ought to head for the shore.”

They turned toward the beach. They didn't need to bob up out of the water to check the direction—they seemed to have an internal compass that just told them where to go.

“I'm hungry,” Danny said. And he turned and shot sideways toward a small pulsing cloud that was drifting through the water. Josh knew what it was immediately, but he wondered whether he should tell Danny. His brother had a habit of eating stuff while S.W.I.T.C.H.ed that freaked him out later when he S.W.I.T.C.H.ed back again.

But Danny was already swimming into the cloud of delicate white parachutes with see-through bodies pulsating through the water. Before Josh could say anything, he opened his mouth and slurped one in. It struggled briefly in his throat but could not escape. Josh knew this was because his brother's reptilian throat had backward-facing spines to prevent his lunch from swimming back up it again.

“What does it taste like?” he asked Danny as the living cloud scattered and swam away fast.

“Um . . . what? The . . . sea jelly?” Danny asked, after a gulp.

“Yes . . . the ‘sea jelly,'” Josh said, making air-quote movements with his flippers. “What's it like?”

“Well . . . quite nice,” Danny said. He started to look a little sick. “I . . . just ate something icky, didn't I?”

“Not for a turtle,” Josh said. “It's turtle takeout, that is. You ate a jellyfish.”

“Eeeeurgh!” Danny said. “Why did you let me do that?”

“Well . . . you said you were hungry!” Josh shrugged and laughed. “And that's what leatherback turtles eat. That reminds me,” he added as he and his brother swam on toward the shallows. “There
is
something that can kill you here.”

“What?” Danny spun round, making a small vortex of sand and bits of floating seaweed. “A shark? A whale?”

“Far worse than that,” said Josh. “A plastic bag.”

Danny cuffed his brother's gray, white, and beige patterned head with one flipper. “You really had me worried there!”

“Well, you
should
be worried if you're going to swim around scarfing stuff without checking what it is first,” Josh said. “Hundreds of leatherbacks die every year because they've mistaken a plastic bag for a jellyfish. Floating in the water they look really similar. The plastic bag blocks up their insides and stops other food from getting through. It makes them starve.”

Danny grimaced. “Um . . . that
was
actually a jellyfish I ate, wasn't it?”

“Yes—it was,” confirmed Josh.

“Phew!”

They coasted over some rocks and stumps of old wood. And then Josh stopped. Very abruptly. He had not intended to stop. Something had stopped
him
.

And that something was not planning to ever let him go . . .

For a few seconds Danny didn't even notice. He swam on toward the beach, loving the way the sunlight dappled down through the warm waves and made ever-shifting patterns across the seabed. And he still hadn't even needed to take a breath! This was so amazing! He and Josh should just forget about giving the S.W.I.T.C.H. spray back to Petty and keep it all week. They could swim out in the sea every day—maybe even go offshore for miles and swim down to explore wrecks!

He started to say this to his brother—and then he noticed that his brother wasn't next to him. Or behind him. Or anywhere.

“Josh? Josh? Where are you?” He waited, effortlessly treading water as his call traveled through the sea. At first he heard nothing . . .
and then . . . a kind of squeak. He flipped round and swam straight for the source of the squeak. He still couldn't see Josh, though, and now his heart began to skip about, rather fast. What had happened? Had Josh S.W.I.T.C.H.ed back to a boy already? That could mean trouble.

Josh had not S.W.I.T.C.H.ed back, but he was still in trouble. He was trapped.

He hadn't seen it because it was pale and almost transparent. But the abandoned fishing net had wrapped itself around him as if it was a living predator. He had swum right into it and become entangled in moments. Part of the net was firmly anchored in some rocks. In its frayed grip were several dead creatures—some fish and some crabs. They had tried to escape and failed. But surely he, a great big strong leatherback turtle, could get out of this? It was only after he'd tried—and then tried some more, and then some more, flapping about more and more agitatedly—that he started shouting for Danny.

At last Danny came back for him. “What have you gone and done?” He chuckled and started
trying to unravel the netting from his brother's flippers, shell, and head. But all too soon he realized that he couldn't do it. The more he tried to unravel Josh, the more the net seemed to tangle and snag and tighten.

“Stop!” Josh yelled, eventually. “You'll end up getting caught in it too!”

“I'll bite through it!” Danny said and went to snap his mouth on the thin, strong fibers. But it was no good. He had only one pointed sort of tooth at the front of his mouth—all the other spiky “teeth” were right down in his throat. He just wasn't designed for gnawing.

“Josh!” he puffed, feeling really scared now. “You've got to get out of there!”

“Yessss,” Josh said. “I had worked that out!”

“We could S.W.I.T.C.H. back at any time now!” Danny said, slapping his front flipper against his scaly forehead.

“Well done for reminding me!” Josh glared at him balefully through the criss-cross net.

“But if you S.W.I.T.C.H. back still stuck down here, you'll have to breathe right away!”

“Correct! Have a gold star!”

“And then you won't be able to, and . . .”

“Well, thanks, Danny—for predicting my funfilled future!” Josh snapped.

“I'm going for help!” Danny said. And, although he hated to leave his twin, he turned and sped away through the water as fast as he could. And that was very fast. In less than a minute he had reached the beach and was clambering up onto the sand.

And then he realized he had some problems. To start with, all of a sudden he was slow and clumsy and heavy. He couldn't move fast at all
on his belly and weird, flippery legs. And, of course, he couldn't shout for help either. What on earth was he going to do? How could he possibly save Josh? As soon as he S.W.I.T.C.H.ed back he could run for help, of course . . . but as soon as he S.W.I.T.C.H.ed back, Josh would be S.W.I.T.C.H.ing too, just seconds later.

Danny's head swam with panic. What on earth was he going to do?

Then he heard a very familiar sound. A yapping sound. High-pitched barking and the scamper of long claws across rock.
Piddle
! He had obviously gotten bored up at the cottage and come down to the beach to find them.

“PIDDLE!” Danny yelled. “COME HERE!”

Of course, nothing much came out. No human would have heard anything. But back in the summer, when he'd been a frog stuck in Piddle's mouth (just about to be squelched between his pet's gooey teeth and hot tongue) Danny had managed to get through to the dog. He knew that as well as vibrations and smells and body language, which so many of the creatures he'd S.W.I.T.C.H.ed into used, there was a strange kind of telepathy going on between animals too.

He tried it now, with all his might, concentrating hard on Piddle's flappy ears as the dog wandered along the rocky bits of the beach.